Compassion And The GOP….

I admit I have only been keeping half an eye open of all this garbage going on with the shut-down and default threats made by the Republicans in congress. One thing I have been watching is to see if there is any compassion being shown by any of those folks there from the GOP and quite frankly I have found almost nothing there that resembles compassion in any of their actions and words. I wonder if this is typical of their base and those who consistently vote to return them to office?

As a matter of fact I find mostly the exact opposite of compassion from many of their leader and in particular Senator Cruz. That guy just seems to be filled to the very top of his brain, if he actually has one, with hate. There is no other way to explain all the vitriol comments that constantly come out of his mouth. He simply hates the president and most others outside his wing of the GOP. It was reported that he even was ranting at the president during the private meeting with a few other members of the GOP.

Now don’t get me wrong, I certainly applaud some of the GOP’s efforts to rein in our never-ending deficit spending. We certainly need to accomplish that. But even there the first thing they want to exclude from budget cuts is the primary waster of our tax dollars and that is our military complex. Instead of wanting to get rid of all the military spending related to the Cold War and “evil empires” they want to take it away from the most vulnerable of our population. They want and voted for severe cuts to food stamp, Medicaid and such. If they were given their way I’m quite sure they would gut Medicare and Social Security as well.

They rail on and on about the evils of the Affordable Care Act but they give nothing to replace it. It seems they are quite happy to lock more than 30 million of our citizens out of affordable healthcare. They seem more than pleased to see people who are presently ill from getting any kind of insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

I really wish I could find even an iota of compassion in any of their words but I can’t. Those in their party that are troubled by this turn away from compassion are like a deer-in-the-headlights. They just seem to be stricken with fear of those who have hijacked the party of Lincoln.

Is this the new face of the Republican party that those outside of the beltway want us to see? I just don’t know? If it is then I need to get down on my knees much more often to pray that this new GOP goes down in flames before they take the whole country with them….

But I am just a simple guy so what do I know……

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2 thoughts on “Compassion And The GOP….”

RJ – good post. I agree with many of your observations on the recent circus in Washington. What I struggle with is how to find and show the tolerance, acceptance and respect to the GOP that I wish they showed to those that they didn’t agree with. I agree that much of what I hear from them is all negative and at times quite hateful. My struggle is with how to consider the germs of what they say that have value (whether I agree with their position or not on all of them) while filtering out the negativity and hate that they wrap those positions in. And the bigger question to me is whether Washington is an outlier? Or do they simply represent the kind of divergence and intolerance within the country overall? So, I keep trying to listen to those that agree with the conservative wing of the GOP and to try and hear their counter proposals/ideas to assess them on my own vs. shutting my own mind down to their ideas based on how they presented them (unfortunately, I too often fall into this trap!). If more of us do this with each other, as your blog attempts to do, perhaps we can model how we want our elected officials to act with each other when they’re in Washington supposedly focused on their job of governing the country for what is truly best for the overall country and not focused solely on their individual re-elections (a failing that I see too often in politicians on both sides of the aisle these days!). Mike

Thanks for the thoughts Mike. I am not an enemy of the GOP. Being “blue” in a “red” state many of my friends are members. As Janette, who is a regular commentor here says many of those who attach the GOP label to themselves are caring and compassionate individuals. I am by no means saying all those who vote for those folks don’t have a heart. What I am saying is that their leaders in Washington seem pretty heartless to me and some like Mr. Cruz quite hateful.

This post really is a plea for someone to show me an ounce of compassion contained in all the rhetoric spewed out lately. If that were my party I would be letting those folks know I am not happy with what they are doing. I would also be doing that with my vote come the next election. Everyone in this senseless battle was elected by thousands of people who sent them to Washington so they are the face of all those in their districts. Is this the face that they want to project?

It just doesn’t seem that there are any there that are willing to put country above party and that is very sad to me.